Reflection
by ChasingRainbows90
Summary: Jac / Emma / Jonny oneshot


**Well this was originally going to be something completely different, but it seemed to want to follow this path no matter how hard I tried. A massive thank you to MirrorSparkles1234 for checking this through for me. I am fairly certain it is a one-shot but I'm also not sure I like the ending so I may add to it. I really hope it is ok :-). **

How many days now has she left her daughter? It's probably easier to count the days she's stayed by her side for an entire 24 hour period, given they are far fewer in number. She tries to reason with herself that it is fine, her daughter – at just over 11 weeks – will have little awareness of the time they are a part provided she is still supplied with milk whenever she requires it, a clean nappy when hers becomes soiled, and warm arms in which to settle. A baby cares little as to how her needs are met as long as they are.

Of course, it is not quite that simple. She knows deep within her, that a child – even one so young – has an awareness of being wanted. Even from those earliest weeks of life, the brain is waiting to be stimulated, craving interaction. She's heard it said, over the years, that those neural pathways could become closed off before the child has even hit their first birthday, could see it in her own being as being potentially correct. To starve the child, to rob it of becoming the person she could be. If she were to look at herself in the mirror, see could see that still face staring back at her. The failed development.

She could rob it so easily of her own daughter. Yet she knows she cannot. Even though she sits at the desk of her ward, apart from the child who needs her, she knows it. It is perhaps why she has filled her daughter's world with others. The nanny who she trusts to interact with her child with an animated face, to babble in that patronising way when really the child should be spoken to like an actual person. Though it seems that her daughter enjoys this nonsensical language.

There is also the child's father – indeed it is he who is her current caregiver. He is like the nanny, able to switch his mind in to that of a child's; though she is not certain that is a positive trait. They will lose themselves in a land of bright colours, and sounds that she fears will overstimulate parts of the child's mind. But that is a small price to pay when in the moments with him, the girl will know love. She will watch as his eyes alight with each little thing that she does, his smile genuine as he drinks in each second he has with his daughter. To watch them is a display of something she has never quite understood, something she has struggled to feel and replicate herself. She watches it with envy striking against her chest, and an ever growing hatred for the person who stole so much from her.

The girl's father though doesn't come as a solo package. He comes linked with the other. Though today she is here, spreading her pixie dust about the ward. But it is coming to the point where she struggles to quite tell where one ends, and the other begins – though it seems to be an unhappy bond. Maybe she is seeing what she wants to see and not the truth, but she cannot shake the thoughts from her mind. His face, his eyes, that look she has seen upon them is never present when he looks upon its face. Maybe she had kidded herself in the belief she had once seen it directed at her, but she cannot deny having never seen it when he looked upon the other woman.

The other woman who it seems is so good, so at ease with her child, to have somehow incorporated herself in to their lives. How often does she hear the comments that she is natural; that she is one of the lucky ones to whom motherhood comes so easy. These same people who speaks these words, will look upon her – the child's birth mother – as the opposite. The one is not suited to life with a babe in arms, the one who could not even settle her crying child as they stood waiting for her to be welcomed in the family of a god she didn't believe in – a god who should he exist had tried to recall the child back to him by forcing upon the innocent life a condition which could have caused – could still cause – her death. It was medicine, the practice of those like her, who had thwarted nature, who had kept her daughter here.

She could do that. She can be the one to keep people's families together, to give them hope. She is the one who fights against the cruelty that is nature. Nature is so very against her. Nature has never given her the chances, or perhaps it has worked to test her more than others. She watches now the other woman, she would have had it all. The easy life with nature fighting her corner, keeping the pathway clear. Nature was against her from the get-go, allowing the ovum that would grow in to her to become fertilised and placed within the uterus of a woman who never should have been a mother. Perhaps if nature had cared for her, the mistake would have been rectified and that tiny being swept from that muscle in a wave of red – or should her life have matter she could have been placed as an infant in to the arms of a family who wanted her, a family who perhaps could not conceive because of the evil beast that was nature. Growing up, nature had shown no mercy allowing her to stumble and fall over the twisted pit filled path that became her life. Somewhere along the way, she grew colder, stubborn in her pursuit of the end goal, the chance to laugh in nature's face that no matter what it threw at her, she could make.

But it came at a cost. It was a cost that she tried not to dwell on but she cannot help herself. She thinks of those around her, and of herself. She thinks of her reflection in the mirror, and how she has to fight against it. She thinks of her daughter's face before her, how she has watched it changed. How the child already responds in her own small way, and how she has grown still in response to her mother. And so she fights that too.

She watches her daughter, watches her carefully for signs of something going wrong. She waits each day for it to happen, for her skin to change hue as her oxygen saturations decrease, for her chest movements to differ as her breathing starts to fail. She watches for so many things, the signs that nature is trying once more to steal her daughter from her, to win this battle. She watches because at the first sign, she can go in to battle with her full artillery. She cannot let nature win, not now.

For she cannot see how she can continue the beaten path, without that little light. Nature had tried to stop her finding light. With a cruel strike of her hand, nature had scarred her, made it harder for her to conceive and carry a child. Not that she had thought she wanted a child, but it was also a possibility. She had not seen herself as a mother, the type to want or need that life. And yet take away the chance, and suddenly things change. The small glimmers of dawn on the dark track, reduced to force her back in to a pitch black world.

And then came hope. A scatter of red light in her world, the bridge between the black of her permanent night and the bright blue of a day she had yet to truly live. The reality of her daughter becoming real with her. She cannot imagine her world now without the little girl. She misses the closeness of her living within her body. Now her daughter is her own person, no longer connected to her physically by the umbilical cord, no longer entirely reliant on her. Her daughter's needs now can be met by others – indeed in those early weeks she did not her at all. She needed the expertise of colleagues trained in neonates, and not a mother who wasn't even certain she could love, could be a mother like this child deserved. She needed someone not paralysed by the fear of saying hello to a tiny being and having to follow it up with goodbye.

With her daughter in utero, she could keep her safe. Each kick, each roll told her that her little girl was safe, that she was in that moment alive. Each action she took was for her daughter's wellbeing. And then that control was taken from her, with the severing of the umbilical cord. No even before that, control was taken when she failed in bringing her daughter in to this world. It was taken from the moment the knife cut in to her swollen abdomen and pulled free a child who should not yet have been born.

She had let it happen; let her daughter come too early, and be pulled free from the world in which she was safe in to the one in which she'd have to fight to live. If she had done things differently, then perhaps things wouldn't have turned out as they had. She can hear the words of those around her, telling her to take leave, to take things easy but pregnancy was not going to slow her down, just as motherhood was not going to change her. Of course when the other women one day becomes pregnant she will do as expected. She will deliver a child naturally, have it placed wrinkled and new on her bare chest and then allow that child to suckle at her breast. She will have what she never could have.

And she can never get that back. But she can prevent herself from losing anything more. And that is why she watches. Only she has learnt, she has learnt as she watches that she is losing all the same. Because in watching her child, she does not interact as the others do. She watches with the determination she has always had. She watches as the child stills before her, giving up her babble when she does not get a response like the others give because her mother is too busy watching.

Her child, her daughter, is like a mirror. She sees in this little girl herself. The baby she once would have been. How long had it been before she had given up, before she had stopped trying to engage those around her with that babbling language of infants? She sees in her daughter the risk of the past repeating but her daughter has what she never did.

She sees in her daughter the signs of herself, and she forces her away from that. She breaks her watch, she forces herself to play, to act. It doesn't come naturally, and yet she feels something when her daughter changes before her. How her eyes brighten as she is given what she wants most of all, how her babble returns as she engages her mother. She has to learn how to watch, and how to engage at the same time because she fears that one day she will not be able to retrieve her daughter, that she won't be able to break out from her still face.

But her daughter will be ok. She will have her father, she will have the other woman. There is the nanny, and her godparents too. These people who will be able to love her and engage with her, even when her own mother has failed. If she fails. She shouldn't look at it as though there's guarantee of failure, not when she is trying so hard. How can she fail when failing means to lose her daughter in another way? She would be losing her to this other family, these other people who can offer everything with ease, these people who know how hard it is for her to do the same.

She startles slightly from her thoughts at the sound of his accent. Every part of her goes on to high alert as she looks about her, trying to spot him. He shouldn't be here, not when he is charged with their child's care. The only reason he would come is if something had gone wrong, if their daughter needed the hospital. She feels her heart hammer in her chest, a worrying tachycardia brewing inside but that doesn't matter, nor does the breath that blocks her throat preventing inhalation of any more oxygen. She shouldn't have left her, no one can watch as she does – and yet to keep up her watch, is to risk losing her daughter all the same.

Finally her eyes focus and she sees the man, standing on the ward, stupid smile on his face as he balances the baby in his arms, his eyes on her tiny face. She only really realises how few breaths she has taken when she draws in air once more. He would not be standing so calm, if anything was wrong but why would he be stupid enough to bring their daughter here, to expose her to this place. She can hear the ridiculous laugh of the other woman, as she takes something in her hand.

"Maconie!" she says his name without thought. The other women says something under her breath, evidenced by the movement of her mouth but she cannot hear what. In response the father of her child walks towards her, not bothering to say anything more to his fiancé, "What are you doing here?"

"We thought we should come in," he looks at the baby and smiles again, "given what day it is," she blinks, trying to comprehend whatever it is he's saying. He has had the baby on Sunday's before and never felt the need to bring her in for a visit. So she cannot quite work out what would be so different about this Sunday.

"You're point being?" He rolls his eyes slightly, and heaves a sigh as he rocks the baby slightly. Presumably the other woman had understood, it is a failure on her part as per usual in his eyes.

"It's our first mother's day with Emma," he answers her finally, he seems to pick his words carefully but it is not enough. She feels things spin around her for a second, seeing in her mind the scene replaying. Her daughter's father handing something to the other woman – the other mother as she refers to herself.

She cannot bring herself to respond, feeling a bubble of bile rise up in her throat as she considers that reality. That she is so easily replaced in her daughter's world, and that he is so willing to do it. He had told her in the hours before their girl's birth that she was the only woman he wanted to mother his child and yet now he was celebrating mother's day with the other woman when it should have been her. This was her first mother's day and she hadn't even realised. She had nothing to show of it, just as she never had anything to show for any mother's day that had come before.

"Did you really not know?" he sounds slightly incredulous, his eyes studying her face. She hates the way he searches her, the fact that he seems to be able to read her and yet right now he seems not to be able to see the truth. He hasn't been able too for some time. She blinks.

"I've never had much cause to know before," Her words are slightly bitter, but she isn't sure he catches that, "and I very much doubt Emma has any comprehension of the date either," she adds, watching as his face falls ever so slightly.

"We .." she raises an eyebrow, glancing down at the baby who lies in his eyes, "it's tradition Jac," he tries again, and she shakes her head. Some tradition. It is one she has learnt to ignore. As a child she had indulged the teachers by interacting with whatever task they supplied, to create some gift for the woman society insisted she call mother. Perhaps at first she had tried to present the gift, but in later years, whatever creation she made had ended up in a bin she walked passed on her way to the place that should've been home. Until the year came when she no longer had a home or that women to return too.

"Oh yes, such a tradition to give a gift to the woman who didn't carry and give birth to the baby," she raises her eyes. Of course it means for than that to be a mother but these other things she doesn't want to share with him right now. The private snippets of her life, the one she now shares with this little girl in his arms.

"She's a part of Emma's life too," he is frowning now. She closes her eyes for a second. Oh how she hates that. This other woman being there. Things were ok before she reared her head in their world. Things could be so much different if she disappeared back to wherever she came, but that isn't going to happen now, "she's going to be Emma's stepmum Jac,"

"Going to be," she repeats the words, "she isn't yet," and if she has her way it won't happen. She cannot imagine why he has let it get this far.

"She's been there from day one, Jac, she loves Emma," There are words left unspoken. The reality that in those early weeks when she had been unable to deal with her daughter, that this other woman had been there. Slowly this other woman could push her away from her daughter, until she is just a name on a Christmas and birthday card. The wicked queen in the fairy story about the princess who was rescued by the Scottish King and his wife.

"The idea of her maybe," she lowers her eyebrows, and fixes him with her stare, "but how's she going to enjoy it when it's three o'clock in the morning and Emma's screaming because she wants milk and you cannot make it quickly enough for her, and then when you've finally got it in to her, she then projectile vomits it back over you meaning that despite being half asleep you need to have a shower and then can't get back to sleep – but as soon as you do your daughter decides actually she's hungry again having retained only a small percentage of her previous feed – how do you think she's going to love it then?"

"That's just part of being a parent," but she thinks she hears the slight beat of uncertainty in his tone, "We've had Emma overnight," he adds and she smiles. Yes in that first week of the baby's homecoming they had indeed taken her away, but things change. Unless, her smile falters, unless it is only she who struggles in this way. Perhaps it is only for her that this happens.

"Well given you two are obviously so made for parenthood, I should just leave you too it," She doesn't know where it comes from, but she finds herself pushing herself up from her seat and striding in the direction of her office, trying to force away any sign of emotion. Of course they are made for parenthood. Of course they can do better than she can. They can provide this family life that she cannot. The house, the dog, the mother and father. It is the whole shebang – the dream she had once thought was possible for the pair of them. Now it was his to share with another woman, and in to that perfect picture, her daughter slotted as the perfect final piece of the puzzle.

She slams shut the door. Only it is not perfect. For the baby is hers. Her daughter. She forces her body down in to her chair. This isn't right, this isn't how it is supposed to be. He should have been giving her a card this morning, a gift. With a babe in arms, he should have greeted her this morning with breakfast in bed, and a grin – perhaps he would have done it without the baby and wearing only the grin. But with a shake of her head, she has to force that image away. It was not to be, not know and she cannot allow herself to think of such things. That is the future of the other woman, not her.

Of course she should have known that it was going to happen. Why wouldn't it? The writing on the wall has been there for some time, but she cannot help but feel the surge of pain. She shouldn't let it get to her. What should a card, a gift matter? What should a single day matter when she had not even realised its significance? She wonders now how she had ignored it, the signs of the approaching day but then she has done it for so many years that it has become ingrained in her being.

It's not even like her daughter is aware of the date either. She's a baby, an 11 week old child, who can barely hold her own head up. It would be an impossibility for her to take hold of a pen to write a card – and really what is a card other than a meaningless sentiment, a money making scheme by greedy companies. Anything she is given would not really be from her daughter, but rather from the man who fathered her – and it is no longer his place to give her gifts. They are no longer a couple. She isn't even sure they could be considered friends. They are just two people who happen to share a daughter.

But she cannot quite push away from the signs. The signs that there is something more just beneath the surface. The small glimpses of their shared history that extends further than their little girl. It is for this reason she feels the pain in her chest, the pain she forces herself to push away. She has two days. Two days and then she has to accept that he is gone. He will be hers and this new life will start.

She swallows hard and reaches out to take her computer mouse, wriggling it slightly until her computer comes to life, until the image of her daughter fills the screen. She concentrates on that image until she is lost in it. Until her daughter's face is so emblazoned on her retinas, that she doesn't even notice the screen turning to black.


End file.
